Products

CES 2016: News Briefs II

CES 2016: News Briefs II

Here’s another snapshot of what else is making news at this week’s tech-fest in Las Vegas. Follow our continuing CES coverage at our CES news site.

–FreeCast is using CES to springboard its new Select TV Box (pictured), a broadband-connected video aggregation platform that, the company claims, will offer access to more than 350,000 TV episodes, 200,000 movies, 1,000 “web channels,” and access to local broadcast networks. The box, which will sell for $99, is paired with a $2.99 per month subscription service.

–Quantenna Communications has teed up a 10G Wave 3 WiFi product family for a new generation of cable modems and gateways based on DOCSIS 3.1, the new multi-gigabit broadband platform for HFC networks. To achieve that, Quantenna is pairing its True 8×8 QSR10G Wi-Fi platform with Intel Corp.’s DOCSIS 3.1-facing Puma 7 SoC. Quantenna said its WiFi platform can deliver up to 10 Gbps and deliver up to 12 simultaneous streams.

–JW Player, a digital and mobile video platform and player company, has raised a $20 million “D” round of funding led by existing investor Greycroft Growth, Greenspring Associates, Cueball Capital, and e.ventures. JW Player, which has raised $46.5 million so far, will use the new round to drive development of new data-centric SaaS products, boost international sales and marketing. The company said its flagship product, JW Player, is live on more than 2 million sites, and generates more than 1.3 billion monthly unique viewers across devices such as tablets, and desktops.

–NeuLion said Samsung Electronics will integrate its DivX CE software development kit to enable 4K live and on-demand streaming on Samsung’s lineup of 2016 Ultra HD TVs. NeuLion, which acquired video encoding/delivery specialist DivX a year ago, said its approach enables streaming up to 4Kp60 and is powered by the baseline NeuLion Digital Platform.

-MaxLinear is billing MxL3705 single-chip platform, equipped with MoCA 2.0 home networking technology, is the first to eclipse gigabit speeds on home-side coax networks. MoCA has become a go-to technology for multi-room DVRs and video gateways for the secure (and speedy) distribution of IP video over the home network. MaxLinear entered the MoCA market in earnest last year via the acquisition of Entropic Communications.

–Red Digital Cinema said Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be the first production to shoot on its 8K “Weapon” platform. Weapon 8K captures 8K video at 75 frames per second, 6K at 100 fps and 4K at 150 fps.

–Tata Elxsi is showing off its RDK Deployment Accelerator Suite running on Ultra HD-capable set-tops reference designs powered by chipsets from STMicroelectronics. The demo offers a fresh glimpse at boxes that run the Reference Design Kit, the preintegrated software platform being managed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global. More than 200 companies, including chipmakers, set-top vendors and pay TV operators, have licensed the RDK.

–Valtech, an independent digital technology company, is the first implementation partner to build multiscreen apps via You.i TV’s Partner Program, which is being showcased by the company here in Las Vegas at the Encore Hotel. You.i TV, which recently closed a $15 million funding round, counts customers such as Sony Crackle (for its Roku app), the TreeHouseGO app for iOS and Android, Corus Entertainment, and shomi, the multiscreen SVOD service from Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications.